The history of the most elegant and renowned shotgun in the world is strictly related to the Italian family that gave its name to it: Cosmi.
Rodolfo Cosmi was born in Macerata Feltria (Montefeltro), the birthplace of artists like Raphael, in 1873. A humble, but clever carpenter and a passionate hunter, he decided to build himself a shotgun using an umbrella rod to save on money. His work proved so successful that approximately in 1890 he started a small production of shotguns with parallel barrels to satisfy the requests of his friends, who were enthusiastic of his invention.
In 1905 he started to dedicate his efforts to his dream, that is the
development of a semiautomatic shotgun.
His goal was to create a perfect mechanism with elegant aesthetics.
First of all, he used the opening system of double-barrel shotguns for his semiautomatic model. After that, he realised that the position of the cartridge magazine under the barrel was anti-esthetical and unbalanced the gun.
The solution to this was a genial intuition: to locate the tubular charger inside the stock.These were the steps that led in 1925 to the presentation
of a working prototype: a semiautomatic shotgun with 8-shell magazine inside the stock, with a unique, innovative design.
In 1936 Rodolfo Cosmi died, leaving his small business to his sons, Marcello (1900) and Americo (1918), who had always shared his great passion. The Cosmi family moved in 1938 from Macerata Feltria to the current location
of Torrette di Ancona, where approximately 8,000 shotguns have been manufactured so far, uninterruptedly, except for a short period from 1940 to 1945 during the Second Word War.
The technical and esthetical perfection of the Cosmi shotguns has been recognised and appreciated by great political leaders and public personalities, Apart from continuous improvements (it must be said that the 1925 prototype is still perfectly working), standard production was integrated in 1990 with titanium models, an innovative material ensuring higher resistance and light weight.
The journey through the history of Cosmi shotguns takes us to the
contemporary scenario: in a time when manufacturers use robotic engineering for mass production in a large scale, Cosmi Americo & figlio has managed to maintain the high craftsmanship of its work. A small number of expert workers combining technology and manual skills takes more than 200 hours to manufacture one shotgun, a work of art characterised by unique perfection and elegance.